Fifteen years is a long time, but to anyone in the entertainment business it's a career. Why did 15 years pass between Steven Wright's last television stand-up special and the one airing Saturday night?

We put the question to the Boston comedian, and he delivered an answer in the deadpan monotone for which he's so famous.

"A comedian notices a lot of stuff. That's how you get the comedy, from noticing things. I do that. All comedians do that," he said, explaining how he collects his material.

"But there's a lot of things I don't notice. I didn't notice time going.

"I like to watch the audience walk into the theater before the show. Some are in their 30s, some in their 20s, but mainly it's 40s, 50s and 60s. And I started thinking, man, people who are in college now were 5 when I did my last special. I've been performing (at comedy clubs) straight through all this time. I thought, I should do another (TV special), for the people who already know me who haven't seen me in a while, and to reach these other people, a younger generation."

If The Man Who Skipped 15 Years says that's his story, then that's his story. But Wright would like you to know he never went away. He played comedy venues hither and yon and made TV appearances on the talk-show circuit, appearing Tuesday on Late Night With Conan O'Brien and in March on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson.

"I love to write and perform, and I've been doing that the whole time," the 50-year-old comedian said in his "barimonotone" — a baritone in monotone. "I get the rush of being in front of an audience. I wasn't thinking I should be on TV so I can reach this other level or stay 'up there.' What I was doing was fine for me. I was very content."

Apparently money was not an issue, either. TV concerts not only are lucrative but also hold out the promise of a DVD jackpot down the road.

"I'm fine," Wright insisted. "I'm totally lucky to make a living from creativity. I know what you mean, if you went this other way you could make this gigantic amount of money. But I'd rather do what I'm doing."

What he's doing is what he's excelled at doing since 1982, playing one venue at a time. No comedian this side of George Carlin is as adept at finding the smart and funny in one- and two-sentence jokes.

•"Sometimes I talk to myself fluently in languages I'm not familiar with, just to screw with my subconscious."
•"What did Jesus ever do for Santa Claus on his birthday?"
•"Imagine Pulitzer Prize fighting."
•"She would drink so much she would slur her pauses."
•"My dog has a Web site. All it is is naked cats."
•"Next week I'm going to have an MRI to see if I have claustrophobia."
The marvel of Wright is not only the lines but also his low-key, no-worries delivery. Unlike Carlin, for example, he shows not a hint of anger in his act. Not too much current events, either.

"I know what's going on in the world, all the tragedies and horror and all this stuff on the news," he said. "But I like to talk about the little tiny things that people experience that they really don't talk about. Or I'll talk about gigantic things, like the expansion of the universe or the speed of light. But all this stuff in between, like mentioning a television show or the thing happening with the (Mark) Foley guy, I've always avoided all that stuff."

Keeping it clean and avoiding the headlines make Steven Wright: When the Leaves Blow Away (8 tonight, Comedy Central) all the more remarkable. It's chock-full of one-liners like those above.

That's a lot of writing when you're on for an hour. Is the special, taped in Toronto, a way of emptying out and starting over?

"It does seem like (I have) a new canvas to work on since doing this," he said. "I keep adding jokes to what I do. I'll never come out of the blue with all-new hours.

"I make this living from telling jokes. ... I come from a regular, middle-class working family. For me to make a living doing this, as opposed to loading trucks or something, is amazing to me."